The Lullwood Group, a nine-member collective that runs 107 Gallery, will transform the Frida Kahlo Gallery at the Instituto Cultural de Mexico.

The Lullwood Group, a nine-member collective that runs 107 Gallery, will transform the Frida Kahlo Gallery at the Instituto Cultural de Mexico.

Photo: Courtesy Lullwood Group

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Artist Doerte Weber has woven together tapestries made of recycled newspaper bags.

Artist Doerte Weber has woven together tapestries made of recycled newspaper bags.

Photo: Helen L. Montoya, San Antonio Express-News

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Luminaria is going big

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This year, Luminaria is stretching out.

The sixth annual arts blowout, which has been contained within the boundaries of HemisFair Park for the past two years, will spill out onto Alamo Street. It will even dip below street level, taking in part of the River Walk. And a handful of “fringe” artists will spend the evening on the outskirts of the footprint, setting up shop in King William and on Houston Street.

More than 600 artists — including visual artists, multimedia artists, writers, musicians, theater artists and dancers — will be taking part in the event Saturday night.

The event will cover more ground than it has the past few years, but it's still a manageable size, said Artistic Director Richard Rosen.

“You're not going to walk more than a mile or two all the way if you did the whole thing,” he said. “The people that don't want to walk any farther than HemisFair will still find plenty to see there. There's some really exciting things, I think.”

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One aspect of Luminaria that has grown each year, whether the boundaries were expanding or contracting, is the crowd size. It began with about 100,000 pouring downtown in 2008; last year, estimates put attendance up over 300,000.

“I had 10,000 come through and see my work the first year I did it,” said artist Sabra Booth, who is co-chairing the visual arts committee this year.

New York artist Kate Temple is delighted by the possibility of exposing her work to that large an audience in the span of a few hours.

She visited the city a few weeks ago to scope out the space she was given for “You Me,” a site-specific installation she is creating for a small adobe house in the park. The piece was inspired by the colors of the area's soil and of the San Antonio River. It will feature a single word in neon on the floor and the sound of water, among other things.

It's just one of many large-scale installations planned for the event. Allowing artists the chance to go big was one of the guiding ideas behind this year's event.

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Luminaria

What: Annual downtown arts blowout.

Where: HemisFair Park; Alamo Street between Market and César Chávez; and the Arneson River Theatre.

On the fringe: Fringe artists can be found at the Alamo Street Eat Bar, 609 S. Alamo St., at 231 E. Houston St. and at the Marriott Plaza Conference Center on South Alamo Street.

When: 7 p.m.- to midnight Saturday.

Admission: Free

Food: Ten food trucks and 21 food booths will be located at the event.

Park and ride: I'm still waiting for an answer on this, which I suspect means there won't be park & ride. But I don't know for sure.

Rain plan: Outdoor installations will be moved into the Convention Center.

“That was one of our goals, to give artists the room to be expansive,” Rosen said.

Whoop Dee Doo, a Kansas City, Mo.-based arts collective, is doing just that. It'll be a gear shift from last year, when they made their Luminaria debut with “Meowcrowave,” an installation tucked into a corner of the Women's Pavilion.

“We were part of the festival, but you feel isolated in the basement of the building,” said Matt Roche, one of the group's directors.

This year, Whoop Dee Doo will have more room to work with — they'll have the two-story Kampmann House all to themselves. And they'll be more front-and-center, since that's not far from the entrance to HemisFair Park.

Inspired by the park's origins as a world's fair expo, they'll be turning the space into a house of the future/haunted house.

“We're going to be doing an installation and performance that'll take place on the outside of that house,” Roche said. “We'll be doing stuff from the windows, and there will be audio and light and maybe some video presentation.”

Whoop Dee Doo is one of three collectives — San Antonio-based Lullwood Group and Meow Wolf from Santa Fe, N.M., are the others — commissioned to create new work expressly for Luminaria.

They've all been given big chunks of real estate in HemisFair.

The Lullwood Group, a nine-member collective that runs the 107 Gallery, will be transforming the Frida Kahlo Gallery at the Instituto Cultural de México with an interactive installation titled “Binary.”

“We're going to try to create an environment out of that space,” said Lullwood member Willie Sanchez. “We'll be using light, visuals and weather balloons and all sorts of things that people can interact with. ... It will be this vortex where you're going into this binary universe. We're looking for this experience of coming into this otherworldly area.”

Meow Wolf will be taking over all of the Women's Pavilion with “Nimbus,” an immersive, interactive, multimedia piece.

“We are crafting an otherworldly dreamscape,” said Corvas Brinkerhoff, one of the project's organizers. “Basically, what we do is, we make dreams that people can walk into and experience. With this one, we're making one devoted to light and sound and narrative.”

There will be multiple tracks of sound that will interlock. And there also will be fog. Lots and lots of fog.

“Sometimes people have some issues with that,” said Vince Kadlubek, who is also helping to organize the piece. “It's totally safe, totally non-toxic.”

Just outside of HemisFair, on the street in front of Magik Theatre, the San Antonio-based Aesthetic of Waste theater and visual arts collective will be presenting the large-scale performance piece “The Literal Definition of Waste.” Two actors will be sitting atop junked cars, one reciting all of Claudius' lines from “Hamlet” and the other reciting all of Gertrude's lines; other actors will circle them, in constant motion, reciting other texts.

It will be challenging physically — Seth Larson, the company's artistic director, described it as “a five-hour endurance piece” — and a nurse will be standing by. However, medical assistance will only be provided to the actors if a member of the audience requests it.

“I'm excited by the scope, ambition and insanity of it,” said Laurie Dietrich, co-chair of the theater arts steering committee.

Chris Sauter's contribution is so big it cannot be contained by Luminaria.

Sauter is creating a body of work devoted to St. Apophenia, “patron saint of patternmakers, fortunetellers, the mentally ill and artists.

“She came out through my research when I began reading about science and how it interacts with religion,” he said.

Sauter is creating an image of St. Apophenia out of disparate objects, which will be projected against the wall of the Convention Center; less complex images will be displayed throughout the event. Sauter also will hand out prayer cards devoted to her.

“This is a teaser,” said Kathy Armstrong, associate director of Luminaria, adding that Sauter's project will be expanded into a multivenue exhibit this fall.

Melissa Ruizesparza Rodriguez, who performs under the name Saakred, is also thinking big. She and architect Arturo Vilchis plan to build a 15- to 20-foot pyramid in which visitors can find some calm. Those who come inside for one of two performances by Saakred can also take in an immersive, multimedia experience taking them from birth to rebirth.

Troy Peters, who co-chaired the music steering committee and is the music director for Youth Orchestras of San Antonio, said he's particularly looking forward to seeing the piece.

“I have no idea what it's going to be,” he said, “but I'm going to be there to see it.”

Given the fact that Luminaria changes every year, that's not a bad approach to the event as a whole.